Helen Forrest Hall, Chief Strategy Officer of the PMI comments: "The PMI welcomes TPR’s announcement that it will be rolling out its oversight of professional trustees. The PMI shares its objective of well-run, operationally resilience pension schemes. The challenge will be balancing the need to oversee an increasing important part of the sector whilst also enabling innovation. The PMI is committed to raising standards across the industry and is actively collaborating with trustee firms and sector partners to foster a pipeline of qualified, capable and diverse professionals”
Adrian Kennett, Managing Director, Dalriada Trustees, said: "We believe beneficiaries of pension schemes deserve the highest standards of governance, risk management and expertise and professional trustees should be at the forefront of this. We welcome the oversight that will be provided by TPR to drive up those standards right across the professional trusteeship market and to ensure best practice is adhered to. Highly skilled trustees with diverse backgrounds working within teams using robust processes can provide breadth and depth of experience across many pension disciplines. This ensures absolute focus on enhancing member outcomes."
Ian Bell, partner and head of pensions at RSM UK, said: “This is welcome news, and long overdue. The professional trustee market has developed rapidly in recent years, with growth and consolidation encouraged by investors, which are often private equity firms. This trend, however, has changed the market, as there are now fewer, larger providers which manage larger funds and reduce competition. The fundamental role of the trustee has, however, not changed and the clue is in the title, it is one of trust. This means trust in taking decisions for the benefit of scheme members with no risk of self-interest for themselves or their organisations. As part of this review, I would expect TPR to present trustees with clearer ethical guidelines, which may be similar to those that we have in the audit profession, designed to ensure that independence is always considered as part of any services provided. This is essential to ensure that trust is preserved as an increasingly key aspect of the pensions industry.”
TPR extends its oversight to professional trustee firms
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